What is it about?
The spasmodic aesthetics of Samuel Beckett’s poetry tap into the automaticity of the fleshly machine, i.e., body, and can best be described in his own words as “the integrity of the eyelids coming down before the brain knows of grit in the wind.” Whether it is a poetics of dehiscence, rectal cavities, or muscular spasms, Beckett’s verse stays moored to the heady operations of the body—tics, twitches, nervous contractions, and stutters—that stay equally impervious to thought and emotion. His poetry is “the work of the abscess”—a work that, in its drive toward inexorability, appears to sidestep the questions of intelligibility and direct affective engagement.
Featured Image
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Why is it important?
It discusses Beckett's poetry, which has not received the critical attention it deserves.
Perspectives
Beckett’s emphasis on the body’s involuntary actions—spasms, twitches, stutters—reveals a radical poetic vision. By focusing on the body as an automatic, fleshly machine, his poetry bypasses intellectual or emotional engagement. Describing his work as “the work of the abscess,” Beckett suggests that poetry emerges not from pleasure or beauty but from pressure, decay, and discomfort. His approach reflects the limits of language and positions the body as the true locus of experience.
Umar Shehzad
University of Edinburgh
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Spasmodic Aesthetics of Samuel Beckett’s Poetry, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, May 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/18757405-03701008.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
